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During our last “full” week of school, my Language Arts class has been working on our last project- drawing our brains. My Language Arts teacher, Mrs. Donnelly, thinks that the human brain is really fascinating and incredible, so for this project, we drew ours.

I know what your thinking- that this would be very hard, would probably take more than a week, and that what does drawing your brain have to do with Language Arts? I will explain. We were “outlining” a brain shape and then, either inside it or in the space around it we would put what we think about every day.

In mine, I had small sections and a few pictures on the outside of the brain. I drew pictures to represent things instead of words because for some reason, I usually think with visuals and pictures instead of just words or phrases. I also like to draw, so I wanted to make it fun.

Going back to what you may have been thinking before, no, this doesn’t really have anything to do with Language Arts. It is just a fun project for the end of the year. The above picture shows the finshed product of my brain. I would have outlined the words with Sharpie, but I never got a chance to and I had to scan it so please excuse the hard-to-read writing!

All of this year, we have been using iPads for school work and organization. For me, this experience has been really cool. I liked having iPads to help me with things like homework and classwork. Usually, I use Evernote, Pages, and Google docs. Technology is always cool to experience and is changing all the time. I’m glad w got the chance to do this and use the iPads.

Over the sixth grade school year, my Language Arts class has been using an online program that helps you learn new vocabulary words and keep them to have and use in daily life. The title of this blog post probably gives away the name of the program, but if you haven’t noticed, it’s called Membean. Membean is a pretty cool program.

Over this year, we have had vocabulary lists and Membean study sessions. My favorite part of Membean is that once you have learned a new word, you keep on being quizzed on it, even once you have cleared the certain level that it was introduced on. There are many other cool things like the fact that not only does it quiz your skill on the words, but it also quizzes you on the certain root words that appear in more than a few words. It quizzes you with word constellations (connections of synonyms were you have to fill in the word), pictures with words, definitions, roots, and many other cool word hooks. After you read this post, I hope you visit the site at membean.com. Thanks for reading!

In Language Arts class, we are reading a book called The Giver. The main character in this book is named Jonas. He lives in a community (that I am guessing is in the future) and the community has gone to “sameness.” This is where there are no feelings or harmful things and no temperature or weather, etc. There is even no color and the people are assigned jobs. Jonas is assigned the role as Receiver of Memories so that the rest of his community does not have to bear the memories of life outside their own and of the world and their community, and back, and back, and back. He is being trained by the Giver who gives him the memories.

If I were the Giver, the first memory I would give, to let the new receiver understand, would be of family. This would be because it would give the receiver a chance to know that there were many ways of living a long time ago, and people lived differently by ways other than the ways of the community. It would give a good start to what the Receiver would be receiving, and it would give me a place to begin to explain. Plus, family is happy memories and it would be good to not start out with an intense, or painful memory.

My perfect teacher would be someone who is firm, yet not strict, calm, yet fun. This would be because I like those teachers who find the fun activities and stick them into the classes, so that the classes are educational, but captivating. The teacher may have small surprises like homework passes to help students to strive to do their best work, and sometimes small parties or activities to celebrate events and holidays.

The teacher would help us with all our troubles and worries, and he/she would try to help the students the best they could. The teacher would give us fun examples to help us understand the topic and the teacher would not give up until he/she succeeded. We would have classes that everyone would enjoy, and everyone would gain from the teacher, even the teacher. We would all try to work together and learn from each other, and everyone would have their say. This would be my perfect teacher.

On Wednesday, my school had community service. We did it by advisory, or our “home room” and each advisory did something different. My advisory went to a place called “TABLE.” I’m not exactly sure what it stood for, though, it may not have stood for anything. While there, we met a lady named Laura, and we packed, weighed, and sorted food that the advisory, and others had brought to TABLE. We did not do it, but we learned, that after our hard work was completed, the food would go to children in all different schools and give them something to eat over the weekend if they did not have enough food for all three meals for each day over the weekend. I felt bad for the children who were sometimes hungry and was glad to be helping them.

Our process was simple, but long. First, we weighed the food we brought in- about 260 lbs! Then we wrote the expiration dates on the food, and sorted them into buckets under the shelves they went on. Third, we put the food on the shelves- the sertain shelves with their expiration dates- and finally, we sorted thought the expired food, wrote the dates on them, and put them in the back room in a bin.

I’m 12 years old. This means that if my world was like the world in The Giver, I would have my “assignment.” I think that if the Elders were watching me, they might see me doing a lot of writing in my free hours. This is because I love to write. With this information, I think they would make me something that has to do with writing. Maybe scribe, or novelist, or something like that. Unfortunately, I’m not sure what kinds of writing jobs there are in the “community!”

With the jobs we have in our world today, I might be assigned teacher. This is because they might also see me doing things that have to do with teaching. I want to be a writer or teacher, or both in real life, so if I were in The Giver, I would probably get Instructor, or something to do with writing. Like I said before, though, I’m not really sure what those jobs would be! Really, I think I’d like to be surprised!

The Westing Game was a great book. It was so clever and well written. I loved it so much and I will definitely read it again. It was interesting to read and listen to. The author, Ellen Raskin, must be very smart and clever to write a book like that. I loved all the characters, and it had that special characteristic that you don’t want to stop reading and you dread when that end of class bell will ring. I love that in a book.

The book was great. The things we got to do with the book were really cool. I had never used Trading Cards before, and it was a whole new experience. It was really fun, and I enjoyed making the drawings. I only saw a few of other people’s, but I loved how each drawing clearly show the important aspects of the character as in the book, yet they were all so different. I never could have seen that with printed pictures. I liked how we, ourselves, got to draw the characters instead of all having the same. Like I said before, it is really cool to see how other people were able to show the same character, but how they pictured them. I loved the experience, and I would really like to do something else like it again.

I was very confused. What am I supposed to do? And who in the world would I write about? That was when we got our Hero project assignment. Now, I don’t think I could have chosen anyone more special to me except my mom. Of course, now you know, I chose my dad. I had so much trouble choosing between everyone close to me but once I figured out that I should do a parent, it was so easy. He has done so much for me and I immediately knew what characteristics to write about him.

I really liked this project because it allowed me to become closer to the people I love. My favorite part was making the books, but I also liked being able to show off my work. I think this was a very special experience and I was very lucky to be able to have done it. So thank you to everyone who made this possible. This experience would not be real if you had not been there. And thank you to my Hero.

She had made up her mind with what she thought to be a relatively safe and thought outplan. She did not know if it was the way it should be for she had not checked before this horror of sorts. As the man turned, the sight of the fear, anger, but yes­ satisfaction that had been clear asday in his lady’s eyes was seared into his brain and he could see nothing else. The people knew not about what he had seen or what door he was to choose. Though he wanted to trust that his princess would protect him, his body shook as he edged closer but not near enough to reach the doors. Those dreaded doors that would reveal his fate.

The people watched with growing fear for they knew they did not want this man to open those doors. But all the same, they crept to the edge of their seats. As he came closer, the tension and suspense hung in the air like the moisture on a humid day. They saw as he did notlook where he was going but crept blindly in the general direction of the doors. Finally, he was near enough to touch those large doors towering over him as if they, just like the king were excitedly awaiting his choice of death. Only the people on the sides of the arena near to himwere able to see now as he slowly pulled out a bony, shaking hand to the door. The door on theright. The door the princess had chosen. The door that was either the best decision he hadmade, or the worst luck he had ever experienced. He had decided to trust the princess.

As the door creaked open, every man, woman, and child held his or her breath and it wasdeathly silent. A baby was heard crying. The man closed his eyes as soon as the door showed acrack and he waited for death to come. He could even hear the snarl and smell the blood. But wait. He stopped. He was listening. The door was just open a crack but he could hear a low snarlcoming from inside. Was he wrong­ did the princess really want him to die rather than marrysomeone else? He slowly pulled the heavy door aside and waited for death to come. It did notcome, however. The tiger was tied. And he was safe. He could do nothing, hear nothing, feal nothing. He was safe and the princess would have to get him now. He heard nothing but all of a sudden, he was grabbed and forced to his nees. The guards went to untie the tiger and let it on him when he heard the sweetest voice he had ever heard. The princess. He listened and heard her exclaim that if the guards were to come near, she would nock them out and the tiger would get her as well. She was lifting him and they were dancing with joy. Her father had excepted.They were to be wedded at once.